A Real Man is a Family Man

Evening gents! It’s Max from The Young Gentleman’s Guide here, here to talk about fatherhood, of all things. So, I just watched a video from Prager University on YouTube which I’ll link to right here. It talks about father characters in pop culture and how their qualities and character traits are what every man should strive to emulate. I thought I would take this idea and run with it, and give my take on the benefits of getting hitched and starting a family, using examples from these pop culture dads. With this post, I’m not saying that becoming a husband and father is the only thing you young gents should be or aspire to be. With this post, I only hope to give you some info on how and why becoming a father can make you a better man. If you don’t wish to be a father, you are completely in your rights to do so. But for any of you wanting or hoping to be a family man, here are three (3) ways being a husband and a father can make you a true man, using famous fathers from pop culture.

1. It Teaches Selflessness

When you choose to get married and are ready to begin your own family, it’s obviously a huge commitment. Choosing to spend the rest of your life with someone and procreating with that person takes a lot of bravery, trust, and most of all, selflessness. If you look at some of the most famous father characters in movies or TV, they show this trait in spades. Whether you’re talking Ward Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver, Mike Heck from The Middle, or my personal favorite, Jack Arnold from The Wonder Years, they are some of the most selfless characters I’ve ever seen in any sort of media. They will bend over backwards to help provide for their families, and no matter what choices they make, the safety and well-being of their family always comes first. They almost always put their wives and children before themselves. This is because providing for the family and putting them ahead of himself is the traditional role of the father (though hardcore SJWs may try to convince you otherwise), and once you make the decision to have a family, it’s no longer completely about you. Marriage and fatherhood make you part of a team, and the well-being of the team overall should have precedence over the well-being of the individual.

2. It Develops a Strong Work Ethic

Since it is the traditional role of the father to provide for the family, it would obviously hard to do so if you don’t have a job. So, if you decide to get hitched, you’d clearly want to provide for your spouse up to the point of buying a house for the two of you. That motivation alone will drive you to work more, get promoted, save more money. And when you and your spouse decide to have have a child, it will only mean more money has to come in. Even just the motivation of providing for one’s family, or even thinking of starting one is enough for a man to turn over a new leaf and revamp their work ethic. You can bet that some of pop culture’s best dads demonstrate some of the strongest work ethics I have ever seen. George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life worked his butt off to help fix up a house for him and his wife, whom he loved more than anything. Going beyond that house fix-up, he only expanded his business to the point where he was able to develop a comfortable living for his wife and four (4) children. Bob Cratchit from the holiday classic A Christmas Carol was extremely dedicated to his work under Ebeneezer Scrooge, as little as he made. Why? Because he loved his family and wanted to provide for them! Even with his miniscule income, his family always appreciated his efforts to provide, and they always loved him no matter what his income. That seems like an admirable role model if I’ve ever seen one.

3. Women Like Fatherly Traits

This is basically paraphrasing from the Prager University video, so I am not about to take credit for anything I’m about to say. With that out of the way, ask any woman past her teen years what she looks for in a man. What will she say? While she probably won’t explicitly say names like Ward Cleaver, George Bailey, Jack Arnold, or Mike Brady, she will most likely list traits that most, if not all, these characters show. She’d most likely say that he’s dependable, kind, and smart. To quote the PragerU video, he’s “confident, but not smug. He’s funny and capable of laughing at himself. He’s successful at work, but not a workaholic. He loves children but isn’t a child himself.” While it’s impossible to speak for every woman, there is a prevailing trend that show that women are attracted to these father-like traits. So gents, if you’ve been wondering how to find a date, there you go.

So there it is! Again, please do no mistake this is me forcing any of you to become fathers. Like I said, I know that marriage isn’t for everybody, and you don’t have to get married if you don’t want to. This is just meant to show what being a father can teach you, and why even if you choose not to be a father, their traditional traits are those that every man should emulate. In any case, I hope you enjoyed reading today’s post. Please be sure to share the post, follow the blog, and follow The Young Gentleman’s Guide on Facebook and Instagram. And on that note, this is Max from The Young Gentleman’s Guide, and I’ll see you next time!